FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional wireless communication system including a public switched telephone network 11 which communicates with a mobile services switching center 13. The mobile services switching center 13 also communicates with a home location register (HLR) 15 and a plurality of base stations at 17. The base stations 17 communicate with mobile communication devices 19 via the air interface 18.
FIG. 2 illustrates a conventional arrangement wherein a group of wireless mobile communication devices 19 communicate with one another over various channels at 21. The channels at 21 represent the communication channels provided by the system of FIG. 1. The mobile communication devices at 19 also communicate with one or more stationary devices at 23 via the channels 21.
One conventional example of a stationary device at 23 is the home location register 15 of FIG. 1. Example FIG. 10 illustrates a conventional arrangement similar to FIG. 2, including a plurality of mobile communication devices 19 communicating among themselves and with the home location register 15 via various channels 21.
The channels at 21 are typically implemented using any of the following conventional examples: Short Message Service (SMS); General Packet Radio Service (GPRS); Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD); and Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD).
It is very common today for a group of persons to utilize respective wireless mobile communication devices 19 for example wireless telephones, to communicate with one another in order to accomplish a certain task. For example, teams of security personnel, transportation crews, and arrangers of various other events often utilize a plurality of wireless mobile communication devices for communication with one another during performance of their assigned tasks. The communication device 19 conventionally includes a memory having stored therein a listing of phone numbers of other group members. This permits the user to retrieve from the memory the phone number of another member of the group. Thus, one group member can call another group member at any time without memorizing the phone number of the other group member.
If a first group member wishes to check the status of a second group member, for example, to determine whether or not the second group member is busy, conventional arrangements require the first group member to manually enter the phone number of the second group member and contact him via a conventional wireless communication session such as a telephone call. That is, there is no way for the first group member to know the status of the second group member without manually entering the phone number of the second group member and establishing a wireless communication session with the second group member. Moreover, conventional arrangements require the first group member to contact each and every group member individually in the above-described manner in order to check the status of all members of the group.
It is therefore desirable to provide a wireless mobile communication device arranged to permit a first member of a group to automatically monitor the status of another member of the group without manually establishing a wireless communication session with the other group member.
The present invention permits a group member to automatically monitor the status of any other group member without manually establishing a wireless communication session with the other group member.